


portraits hung in empty halls

by crackthesky



Category: The Witcher (TV)
Genre: Curses, F/M, no beta we die like men, sir that's my emotional support comma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-15
Updated: 2020-05-07
Packaged: 2021-02-27 20:35:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22731871
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crackthesky/pseuds/crackthesky
Summary: there is an odd little portrait tucked away in an alcove.  at night, the canvas lies empty.  most never notice it.the Witcher does.
Relationships: Geralt z Rivii | Geralt of Rivia/Reader
Comments: 60
Kudos: 205





	1. prologue

The Witcher appears without warning. 

His hair, the color of fresh cream, draws your eye to the door. You think you are perhaps the first to notice him despite the way his broad frame fills the doorway. His hair seems to you a rare thing, like snow capped mountains, a dusting of white over the stone of him. 

The inn is buzzing, the glow of the torches cutting through the velvet of the night, drawing patrons like moths. You’ve been laughing all night, fluttering between your customers, all cheeky grins and soft touches. Malinka has been grumbling behind the counter. She would be well within her rights to curb your wandering, to anchor you behind the bar, but she has always been soft for you. Besides, while the ale is good, the company is what keeps most of the men coming back. It is selfish, you think, the little charm you paid handsomely for, but you always want the inn warm with chatter, to fill the rafters with laughter and argument and rambunctious humanity. The cacophony is a promise of existence, and you drink it down like mulberry wine. The coin is simply an added bonus.

The bedlam fades as the Witcher enters, a hush falling over the tables. It makes your skin prick. You’re just beginning to turn to Piotr, to make him kick up the fiddles again, when the bard next to the Witcher starts to strum on his lute. The sound catches like kindling, his voice a reassurance, and though it takes a moment, the conversations start up once more.

The bard is a talented one, boisterous in his delivery. Piotr finds the rhythm of his song and the fiddles join in. The Witcher seems unmoved by the reception, the crowd parting for his hefty frame as he makes his way to the counter. You murmur Elias’s name, draw his incendiary gaze from the Witcher and back to your conversation. 

Your attention wanes, though, when you see Johan step to the counter, waving off Malinka. There’s a sour twist to his face, something half-rotten lurking under his skin. You curse under your breath. 

The Witcher is sliding coin across the bar when you catch his wrist. “Johan,” you say sharply.

Johan murmurs your name. It’s lined with challenge.

A simple flex of the Witcher’s wrist dislodges your grip, but that’s hardly your concern right now. “Would you like to repeat the amount of coin you asked for to me?” you ask Johan. You’d heard it as you were weaving your way to the bar. You suppose you should be less surprised by Johan’s audacity, for his bravado is never tucked far from the surface. 

Johan grits his teeth, names a price almost triple what you charge. 

“Out,” you say. The snarl is barely hidden beneath your tongue.

“He’s a fucking Witcher, you cannot-”

“It is not our way,” you say, and the warning cannot be missed.

Someone at the bar snorts, the air thick with barely contained amusement at your scolding. The rancid twist of Johan’s lips spreads to his eyes. You hold firm; you have faced far worse.

“Protected by a woman,” Johan spits at the Witcher. “She can’t always save you, mutant.”

“Enough,” you say. “Go.”

He growls a curse at you, but pushes away from the counter, storming into the back. You hop the bar with a flurry of your skirts. Your skirts hike high with the movement, baring your skin to those paying attention. It garners you a whistle from one of the men at the bar. You tip him a wink.

Up close, the Witcher is the type of handsome that makes you want to trace your fingertips across his skin, circling lower and lower. You pour a mug of ale, press it towards him. He has eyes of amber, and they are sharp on you, sliding beneath your skin like a stiletto blade. It has been years since you’ve felt so stripped by a gaze alone.

“My apologies,” you say to the Witcher. “That is not our way here.”

He grunts. “Hard to agree.”

“It is not my way, then,” you amend. 

“That,” he says, his gravelly voice arrowing through you, “seems more likely.”

You smile gently; he does not return it. Still, there is something in his gaze, and you wonder what you look like in his eyes.

He starts to push coin - less, this time - towards you, but you nudge it back. “No coin needed,” you tell him. “I’ll accept your name, though, should you be insistent on payment.”

He considers you for a moment. “Geralt.”

“Geralt,” you repeat, and your own name falls from your lips like an offering. You want to ask him more, want to hear if the stone of him can be chipped away at, but one of the men at the other end of the bar calls to you. “Pardon me,” you say to Geralt, and then you slide away. You can feel his eyes lingering on you.

You are whirled into work, balancing trays of ale against your hip, laying kisses on the cheeks of the more familiar regulars, darting out of their grasp with a giggle when they try to pull you down into their laps. The bard’s music spills over you, and you let Elias sweep you into a dance. Malinka is swept up, too, until the clamor of those wanting drink overtakes the cheers of those watching you spinning, your skirts flaring. 

The night lengthens. As patrons trickle out the door, the bard winds down, joins Geralt at the bar. He’s immediately leaning forward at the sight of Malinka, of her tumble of onyx curls and her plush hips. You are tempted to return behind the bar, as most have retired to their rooms or staggered home, but you mind Malinka’s glare and clear the tables. 

It is late when Geralt and the bard rise to follow Malinka down the hall of the inn, the torches burning low. You cannot help but follow them with your eyes. The bard throws you a wink when he notices your attention; you tip one right back. His delight lights his face, and you stifle a giggle. 

Geralt, however, pays you no mind, though you are sure he feels your gaze. They are just about to disappear from sight when the Witcher slows. He peers into a small, dark alcove, leaning into it just slightly, and ice trickles down your spine. You cannot remember the last time a patron even noticed the tiny nook. You wet your lips as he tilts his head to better see the frame tucked back against the wall.

Malinka chews on her lip as she tries to urge him along. Geralt cannot be moved, though, and you flex your fingers as he lingers there.

“Shit,” Rose says quietly, coming up behind you.

You can’t even make a sound. 

She twines her fingers through yours and squeezes. You grip her hand tightly, enough to make her wince, but she says nothing.

Finally, finally, Geralt pulls away from the alcove. He ignores the bard’s questions. He glances back, those amber eyes finding you, and you tug at Rose, feeling your fingers trembling against hers.

She curls an arm around you and whirls you into a dance, spinning you amid the tables with quick grace. Those few that remain, all those who are haunted by the dark and cannot seem to find rest during it, whip up into a chanting song to give you a beat to twirl to. By the time she releases you, Geralt is gone. 

You lean forward and bury your face in her shoulder, inhaling the scent that lingers on her skin like a kiss, rosemary and rosemallow, roses for Rose. She presses a hand against your head, cradles you to her. “Don’t fret,” she says. “It makes you look old.”

“Thanks.”

She drops a kiss on the crown of your head. “You’re welcome,” she says, her cheer blazing through the night’s quiet like a shooting star. 

You pull away to let her tie her apron on. The inn is empty now, all the travelers tucked away in their beds, sheltered from the cold of the night. Rose fills the silence with bawdy jokes and the slap of the bread dough against the counter. You settle in beside her, plait the ropes of sticky dough into loaves. It is familiar, and comforting, and for now - it is home.

Dawn approaches. You feel it in your bones, feel it in your marrow, something in you going papery. You wipe your sticky hands on your apron. You leave it splayed across the counter, brush your fingers against the clumsy stitching of it, the thread the color of a plum, though it has long faded to something lighter. 

“Must you torture yourself?” Rose asks. She lays a hand across your forearm as you round the bar, her fingers forlorn against your skin. 

You do not answer; cannot answer. The taste of paint has coated your tongue. You brush your fingers over Rose’s knuckles, over her soft skin, and then you are out into the waning night. 

You had loved the night, once, had spent hours in the grip of the chill air, listening to the whisper of the wind as it threaded through the fingers of the trees, bark scraping like a melody. 

The night is not cruel, you know, but it feels cruel all the same, with the vastness of it gaping wide like a mouth, the stars little pinpricks against the void of it, like lanterns bobbing deep in the woods at night, little flickers of hope against an unruly dark.

The stars, though, are fading now as dawn creeps over the horizon, long fingers of light starting to stretch across the sky. You push to the tips of your toes. The sun is still beneath the horizon, and you are so hungry for it. You ache for it, your breath caught in your chest by the promise of it.

It grows lighter still, and just as the sun would peek over the horizon, as you crane towards it, desperate for the smallest glimpse of it - everything goes dark.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the last thing in the world i need is another wip. so here, have one. 
> 
> this popped up in my head a while ago, and i've been dying to start it because - as you may have noticed - curses are my jam. i'm still a little iffy on this prologue, but prologues can be hard, and i just wanna have some fun.
> 
> why do i have such a comma problem why am i Like This


	2. moonrise

The sun sets, and you rise.

The silk sheet that shrouds you slips to the floor. In the dim glow of the candlelight, it glimmers like snow in the moonlight, the creamy white of it cooled to prismatic ice. You leave it puddled on the stained wood floor. You pad barefoot to the washbasin, adjusting to the lively hum of the inn, to the jolt of noise after so long without. It is never an easy transition. 

The cool water trickles down your neck as you splash your face, the droplets rolling over your bare skin like an early spring rain, collecting in the dip of your navel before spilling onward. You turn to the tiny nook that shelves your clothing, your stiff joints moaning as they stretch and pop. 

_Rose_ , you think, spotting the verdant sprig of fresh mint placed carefully on the small stool. The bundle you’d pulled a leaf from yesterday had been wilting at the edges, the leaves curling in under themselves, like shy children covering their faces. You’ll have to make her something. Embroider her favorite gown, maybe, weave delicate little morning glories around the bells of her sleeves so they sway with her, as if she’s the dawn wind.

The mint tears under your teeth. It burns cold, searing away the heavy, oily coating that lays rotting on your tongue. You chew slowly, rolling the leaf through your mouth as you unfold your chemise and drape it across the stool. 

Unwinding the thin golden chain looped messily around your neck and shoulders takes time. You tease at it, slip your fingers beneath the delicate, tangled thread of it. It is the daintiest tether you have ever seen, a golden, gossamer little thing, a strand of a spider’s web lit by the sun. You dump it onto the thin wood stand the washbin rests on.

Your earrings clink as you set them down next to the chain. It’s a relief to have them off, to let your lobes rest from the sharp pull of their hefty weight.

The homespun wool of your skirts rustles against the floorboards as you dress. You sweep the discarded jewelry into your palm; you dump it onto the silk sheet, watch as the gold sinks into the folds of the fabric. 

You leave it all on the floor.

A few travelers tip their heads to you as you sweep down the inn’s halls. You sail past the small alcove that had so entranced Geralt last night, stepping carefully away from the shadowed niche. 

Johan is waiting for you at the archway to the tavern. You’ve never thought of him as large, with his wiry frame, thin but strong, like a bowstring pulled tight, but he fills the archway. There’s still a faint hint of rot to him, something acidic tinting his strong, handsome features. You slow your pace, come to a halt before him, just shy of nose to nose, your skirts frothing over his feet like a wave breaking on the sand. The scowl knitting his brow deepens.

“If your intent is anything other than apology, save your breath.”

The flush flares into life. It spills crimson across his skin like wine, spreading wide. “Apologize?” Johan snarls. “When you’re the one who defended that mutant?”

“Did I not just say to save your breath?”

His hand flexes. You watch as his fingers curl into a fist, the knuckles gone bone white, and wait. There’s fear cut sharp into his visage, barely blanketed by the veil of anger on the surface.

“If you’ve nothing to say,” you tell him, “please move.”

That fist of his tightens again, his knuckles a ridge of mountains. The tendons in his jaw cord. “The Witcher cannot stay.”

“He paid his coin, just like the rest.”

Johan’s jaw works. “Stubborn bitch.”

“Careful,” you say, and there is crackling frost in your tone, winter come early. “I won’t tell you to save your breath again.”

He considers you, those green eyes burning incandescent, all sparking St. Elmo’s fire. Johan has often reminded you of a dog with a bone, setting his teeth into the marrow of his irritant and worrying it until he breaks it. 

“Move,” you say, pleasantly enough, but with that ice still threaded through your voice. “Malinka’s expecting me.”

Johan lingers in the door frame for a moment more, a shadow of a threat, but he steps aside. You brush by him without a care; if you clip him with an elbow, well, he should have moved further. He’ll just add it to the list of wrongs you’ve done him, you think, and gods know that’s the least of your concerns.

The sounds of the tavern sweep over you. The clank of tankards, that thick hollow thud of wood against wood; the spitting crackle of the fire; chatter punctuated by uproarious laughter, rising to fill the rafters. It is a balm against you. Noise has long been something to steady yourself on.

You scan the room as you enter, and do not glimpse the Witcher’s broad shoulders. Nor do you see a hint of the bard. Your shoulders loosen, the tension melting out of them like winter yielding to spring. Malinka is behind the bar, her ebony curls flowing like a wild river to her shoulders, gleaming in the candlelight. She presses a quick kiss to your cheek as you join her. _Worried_ , you think. She is not alone in that.

“Ale!” Wren calls from the end of the bar. 

“Coin!” you retort, sashaying over to him and leaning against the pitted wood counter. You pull a tankard from nearby, wincing as you flex your stiff fingers. They always take the longest to grow limber once more.

“Fair enough,” he laughs.

“Truly, Wren,” Annika says as she slides past with a tray of empty tankards. “Your mother would faint to hear your lack of manners. Tell me, how do the village girls stand your voice?”

“Yes, Wren, you’re lucky you’re charming when your mouth is closed,” you add. 

“Beautiful and cruel, the both of you!”

You reach across the bar and pat his cheek. “Just a little,” you say with a laugh.

Annika snorts, passing you a tray. You nestle it into the crook of your hip and get to work.

The tavern only grows more lively, the gleam of light spilling from the doors cracking the darkness outside open. You whirl about, dipping around tipsy patrons, carrying plates of food high to drop them at tables. 

It’s one of the busier nights, considering tomorrow is traditionally a day of rest, and you revel in the tumult, in the show of overflowing life. It keeps you light on your feet, moving until there’s sweat gleaming at the hollow of your throat. You dodge Elias’s hands with a laugh as you make your way back to the bar.

“So,” Annika says. “A Witcher, then?” Her slim hands move like water, smooth and flowing, pouring tankard after tankard between slicing off fat hunks of brown bread, still wisping steam even in the heated air of the tavern.

You sigh and duck beneath the bar to pull a few sausages from the small larder. “Yes,” you say. “Don’t you start.” 

“There’s little for me to say.”

“And yet you so often say things anyway.”

She laughs. “True,” she says. “I’ve no quarrel with the Witcher, so long as he keeps his sword sheathed."

If Rose were here, that would not leave untouched - ‘which one,’ she’d say, her grin impish, her voice dropping into something sultry - but she is not, and you think you should try to keep thoughts like that from your head. At least until Geralt is gone, when there’s no danger to considering the thickness of his thighs and the knife of his golden gaze. 

“I doubt he’s the one you should worry about,” you say, thinking of the way many men’s eyes had followed Geralt last night, malicious and hungry. 

“Probably not.”

Someone calls to Annika from down the bar; she shoves the knife into your hand and gestures towards a loaf. You drop the sausages onto a nearby plate and start to slice the bread. 

“I looked for you earlier. I didn’t think it would be so hard to locate such a pretty woman in the crowd.”

You glance up. The bard is smiling at you, his blue, blue eyes catching the light. You cast your gaze to the side, but Geralt is nowhere to be seen. Your grip on the knife’s handle loosens.

“I work nights,” you tell him, and if your smile is a little brittle, he doesn’t seem to notice. “Makes it hard to find me early. What can I get you?”

“Your name?”

“It’s a bit out of your price range, I think.”

He gasps, one hand flying to his chest. “Will you not take pity on a poor bard? How am I meant to write a song praising this inn and its lovely innkeeper?” 

You arch a brow. “Why would you need my name for that, bard?”

He blinks. “Jaskier,” he tells you, and it takes you a moment to realize that he’s given you his name. “And because you are the innkeeper?”

“I’m not.”

“Are you certain?”

You stifle a laugh. “Quite,” you say, but then you take pity on him and give him your name. “Why did you think I was the innkeeper?”

“Ah,” Jaskier says. “You were...forceful, last night, not that Geralt was particularly forthcoming about it. Also the serving girl said you were.”

_Betony_ , you think, following Jaskier’s long, nimble fingers as he gestures towards the far side of the tavern. Betony glances up just then, and from the cheeky grin she flashes, she’s unrepentant. It’s harmless enough, nothing worth even getting irritated over, so you blow her a kiss. 

“I’m not,” you repeat. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“I’m not sure you could disappoint, love,” Jaskier says.

You fumble with your knife, the tip of it sinking into the wooden board beneath the sausage with a hollow thunk. 

_My love, Dymitr murmurs, his lips brushing against the curving shell of your ear._

“Isn’t that what you called me this morning?” Rose chirps. She swings over the bar in a flurry of crimson skirts and wraps an arm around your waist. She still carries the chill of the night air on her skin. She presses herself against you, lets you use her as an anchor against the wave pulling you under. “Aren’t bards meant to be inventive?”

Jaskier gapes. 

“Be nice, Rose,” you say. 

“Rose?” Jaskier says, “Funny, I took her for a bramble.”

Rose snorts. “Be careful not to be caught on thorns, bard,” she says. She tugs at her shawl, lets it flow from her shoulders to the crook of her elbows like a waterfall. It catches against you. “You were looking for the innkeeper? What is it you want from me?” 

You sink your elbow into her side. Her curse is blistering; down the counter, Wren cackles at her creativity. 

“She’s not the innkeeper,” you tell Jaskier, who is looking somewhere between distraught and combative. “Rose, will you please get more bread?”

She laughs, the sound like woodfire smoke, billowing out in slow, low tones. “I suppose,” she says. Rose dips away from you, giving your waist one last squeeze, and heads towards Wren.

“Gods, do all women here worship a trickster god?” Jaskier asks. “If not, you should consider it. I imagine most would excel.”

“Probably.” 

“Is there a test I have to pass to get the innkeeper’s name? If it’s a physical one, can I have a champion? Geralt would do nicely at that.” 

You pull the knife free of the board and set it to the side. Someone calls for ale; you sigh and pour a tankard of it. “You can play,” you tell Jaskier. “We’ll give you coin at the end of the night in addition to any earnings you may get from the crowd. That’s why you were looking for the innkeeper, yes?”

Jaskier sets his hands on his hips, his long fingers drumming against the fine material of his clothes. “Do you just use some title other than innkeeper to confuse people?”

“Malinka’s the innkeeper,” you say, nodding towards her. She’s laughing at a nearby table, men drawn in a knot around her, an unknowing queen speaking to her court. 

“Right,” Jaskier says. “You just make all the decisions.”

“She listens to me, yes, when she chooses to do so,” you tell him. _I raised her, taught her as much as I could as best I could, and she tends to honor that_ , you don’t say, trapping the words behind the gate of your teeth. It would only bring questions.

He chews at his bottom lip, bites the flesh pinker still. 

“You’ll be paid,” you say. “No tricks, not about that. For last night, too.” 

You wonder if other inns see the value in Jaskier, not just in his talent, but in his ability to reassure. There’s little doubt in your mind that his music has soothed many a ruffled feather that Geralt’s presence has caused. From the tongue on him, though, you think he’s also caused his fair share of trouble, too.

“You are a treasure despite your company of treacherous women.”

“Go play, bard, before I change my mind.”

Rose reappears as Jaskier heads towards where the fiddlers usually sit, his lute cradled against his stomach. He’s already plucking at it, discordant notes being corralled into something musical, something pretty. 

“Do you think they’ll stay long?” you ask.

She lifts a shoulder in a lazily elegant shrug. “Hard to say,” she says. “I’ve had rocks speak to me more than the Witcher did.”

“Rose.”

“I know,” she tells you, cupping your cheek. Her palm is warm and callused against your skin. “It will be fine. No sense in worrying unless it’s needed.”

“Easy for you to say.”

“It’s not,” she says sharply, all thorn instead of her usual soft petals. “Do not make the mistake of thinking that I do not have fear.”

Jaskier starts to play. The music blooms to life, unfolds delicate and sweet. It seems an odd choice for the rowdy tavern, but the melody is a haunting one, one that slips beneath your skin and hooks deep. 

Rose pats your cheek. “Don’t fret,” she says, an echo of last night. “Go help Betony, she’s such a distracted little thing.”

You snort, but there’s more than a measure of truth to it, so you wipe your hands free of breadcrumbs and pick up a nearby tray. Betony is half on Delythe’s lap. She’s plucking at Delythe’s thick braid, coiling it around her wrist and giggling. For her part, Del seems tolerant, the grin on her lips fondly indulgent.

“Betony,” you say.

“You’re no fun,” she says, but she gets to her feet, tugging on Delythe’s braid and pressing a kiss against her cheek. Her lip paint leaves a mark the color of a bruise, deep plum. The two of you gather empty tankards and plates, stacking them high on the tray. With Jaskier playing, everyone seems to fall into a rhythm. You duck between patrons with delicate precision. Each step is practically a dance, Betony matching you as the two of you dash around.

You can feel the night lengthening, can sense the moon tracing a path across the velvet sky. The moon always seems brighter as winter creeps forward. As if the coming snow reflects the light the moon sheds, makes it a disc of shining ice.

Elias catches you in a dance or two between servings; Wren pulls you along for a quick jig when you duck into the back room for supplies. Malinka sweeps you off your feet as well, laughing as she leads you before she twirls you into Betony’s arms. Jaskier’s music rises and falls, a piper’s call to the crowd’s mood. You let it envelop you.

Geralt appears as it grows late enough to perhaps be called early. Patrons are starting to stagger home, though there are a few gatherings tightly knit around tables, still nursing their tankards. Even with fewer present, there are still murmurs that follow the Witcher, little whispers that haunt his steps like an angry wraith. It makes your chest tighten. How quickly people turn on what they don’t understand. On what they don’t even try to understand.

He seems unbothered by it. You think again of stone, of the jutting mountain peaks, for Geralt’s face could be that of a statue’s. He has the jawline for it. Mostly, though, he has the smoothed expression of a marble bust, one just shy of human, as if the artist couldn’t quite settle on mood, caught between emotion and emptiness. It feels a false face. A shield, a barricade for humanity’s siege against his very presence to break upon. 

You should leave, let one of the others serve him. You know that. Betony retired home earlier, but Malinka is just in the store room. Rose is not far, either. You should call for them. You know that. But Geralt finds you behind the bar, his amber eyes like firelight, and you stay.

The tankard clanks against the wood as you set it down in front of him. “Would you like something to eat?”

“If there’s something available.”

“I wouldn’t offer something I am unable to give.”

He pauses, the tankard halfway to his mouth, and you cannot look away from his parted lips. Your hands twist in the wool of your skirts, draw the fabric tight against your fingers. “Yes, then,” he says. His eyes flicker, and you think that is not what he wanted to say, that he has swallowed something down.

The plate is a simple one. Geralt seems a man who consumes only to continue, who does not yearn for flavor on his tongue. You keep it to a thick slice of brown bread and some salted meat. You wipe down some tankards as he eats, caught between the compulsion to stay and the whispering nerves that beg you to flee. 

“What brings you here?”

Geralt pauses again, those golden eyes lifting to you. You feel heat rise in your cheeks. “I’m sorry,” you say. “It’s habit to chat with patrons.”

He grunts.

You bite at your lip and scrub harder at the tankard, twisting the old cleaning cloth around your fingers until it is cutting into your flesh, until it almost hurts. 

“There’s a village to the north,” Geralt says. “It has rumors of a beast, and they have coin. This inn is the closest. The village is small.”

“And by that,” Jaskier says, sliding onto the stool next to his friend and gesturing wildly, “he means it is a hovel of a town, more a collection of houses than a village.”

“I see.”

“Luckily,” Jaskier says, leaning forward until you think he will overbalance, “that means we have found ourselves here. It is a charming inn, innkeeper-who-is-not.”

“It’s just an inn.”

“An inn with good ale and food, and most importantly, appreciative crowds.”

“It’s just an inn,” you repeat, but from the way Jaskier’s smile lights up, he can hear the laughter hiding just beneath your tongue.

Jaskier starts weaving a tale for you, his hands fluttering about as he speaks, his voice falling into a cantering cadence that lulls you into the story. Geralt eats in silence, grunting here and there as Jaskier tries to reel him into the story. The bard elbows him once, lightly, and the withering look Geralt gives him could rust a sword. 

It is not long after Geralt finishes eating that the two men rise. It is truly late now, the time when nocturnal creatures begin to slink back to their burrows, the time when the starlight goes cold and strange. 

“Good night,” you tell them.

Jaskier chirps something back to you, but his words are washed away by the weight of Geralt’s gaze on you. It peels at the layers of you, cuts through to the bone, until all of you is laid bare before him. Your fingers tremble.

They tremble still when you trace their path to the hallway, pulled after them like a pebble caught spinning in the tide. You catch yourself before you follow them further. From your place just beyond the door, you hear Jaskier heave a sigh. 

“Geralt,” the bard says, and you’ve never heard a tone that sounds like someone putting their hands on their hips in reprimand before, “will you hurry up? The painting will be there when it’s not a time when even the gods are asleep.”

The bite of your fingernails startles you. They cut into your flesh, tiny sickle moons against the map of your palm, constellations amid the lined sky of your hand. There are footsteps, then, receding down the hall. They ring in your ears long after the men are gone.

Rose finds you sitting near the hearth, your knees tucked up against your chest. 

“I’m frightened,” you tell her.

She kneels at your side, a priestess at your altar, her face turned up to you like a flower to the sun. 

“I know,” she says.

She waits for sunrise with you, lets you gaze into the fire’s light in silence.

You feel it when daybreak approaches. You close your eyes and surrender to the dark, to the velvet night that lives behind your eyelids. It feels easier like this. Gods, you miss the sun.

The sun rises, and you set.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so for some reason i'm much more nervous about writing Jaskier than Geralt?? idk if i'm honest i'm always nervous about writing lol, but i'm still having fun.
> 
> if i'm honest with y'll this story weirdly makes me wanna go to a museum. i love me a good art exhibit. 
> 
> daylights saving time is a) fake and b) ruining my life already.


	3. moonless

The rain clouds have stolen the moon away.

You ache for the moon’s light, for the way it settles silken over the windowsills, how it spills into the inn like filmy curtains billowing in the wind. The sky seems lonely without it. The rain’s ancient song bounces hollow against the cobblestones, but it does little to fill the moon’s absence.

On moonless nights, the cheery glow of the inn’s torches fades into something shallow, a guttering candle in the night’s open maw. It opens a chasm in you, cracks splintering through bone. You have so little light, you think. 

The rain does not mean to rob you. But rob you it does, and what it steals from you cannot be replaced. You peer through the shutter into the shadowed sky, and the bone splinters dig into the soft parts of you. 

Malinka calls to you from behind the bar, and like a ship caught by the wind, you go to her. 

“Your head’s in the clouds,” she tells you as you hop the bar, your skirts flaring like an opening blossom. There’s something like sorrow tucked into the corner of her mouth. A gift you’d never meant to give. “And we’re too busy for you to be looking to the skies.”

“Yes, lazy bones,” Annika drawls, coming up behind you. Her cloud of curls whispers against your cheek as she nudges you out of her way. She leans over the counter to hand Betony a serving tray brimming with steaming brown bread, the syrupy molasses scent of them coiling around you. “Get to helping.”

“Oh,” you say, an impish tilt to your lips, “but you all work together so seamlessly, I’d hate to disturb.” 

Malinka and Annika both swat at you. You dance out of their reach, swaying like river reeds caught in a relentless current. 

“Get,” Malinka orders. There’s a smoky edge to it, as if her command will wisp up the chimney into the night sky, will dissipate until it has no hold on you.

_You just make all the decisions_ , Jaskier had said. 

“I’m going,” you say lightly. Annika presses a pitcher into your hands, her dark eyes soft, and you slip out from behind the bar. 

The inn is warm with noise and firelight alike, the sound of laughter rising to the rafters like smoke and pooling there. Busy, though, you think - busy is an exaggeration. The locals have stayed tucked cozy in their homes, their shutters closed against the rain’s cold touch. It is mostly travelers today, those already ensconced within the inn, gathered in loose-knit groups around the tables and the crackling fire. A temporary village within the inn. Busy, you think - busy is the days when your feet ache from dancing through the thicket of patrons, a veritable forest of humanity, slender saplings and broad oaks alike in the bodies you weave through, when you can sink into the noise of life. This is hardly busy.

But you know a gift when you are given one.

Betony tips you a wink as she goes sailing past. Her thick chestnut braid is coming undone at the ends, all fraying ribbon coming apart in loose wild waves, and it cascades behind her. On moonless nights, she is your favorite source of light. Her laughter burns starlight bright as it fills the air. 

You wish it was enough. 

The night lengthens. Jaskier appears at the beginning of the late dinner’s bustle, his doublet a striking cerulean, stark against his pale skin. Geralt does not follow him, and the breath caught in your throat rushes past your lips like a river freed from a dam.

Jaskier calls your name cheerfully. The musical tone of his voice cuts through the rest of the noise, somehow, and you wonder if bards learn that, or if it’s something the best ones are born with. You’re only just starting to unload a serving tray on a table, though, so you toss him a smile and return your attention to the patrons. Jaskier’s lute comes to life, his nimble fingers wringing song from the taut strings.

He whips the small crowd into a merry mood despite the wind whistling beneath the shutters. You and Betony skip through the tables in time with the stamping feet, slinging tankards of ale and hearty plates alike, coming together to wrap your arms around each other’s waists and twirl for a heartbeat. 

Jaskier’s music helps the time spin by. You can feel the moon unfurling across the sky like a fern frond. A lazy, slow path of light carving through the velvet crush of the dark, only to be obscured by clouds hanging heavy with rain. 

You peek through the shutters at the curtain of rain, watching it pour from the sky like a waterfall. The clouds are so thick that there’s not even a hint of the moon. The bone splinters shatter into something smaller, little slivers of needle sharp marrow, and they prick you deep.

“To the kitchen with you,” Malinka orders, coming up behind you and swatting at you with a cleaning rag. It shakes the reverie away. She chivvies you to the kitchen, her work-rough fingers gentle against your back. 

“Relentless,” you tease. “You’ll have us serving girls run off our feet.”

“I’ll have you doing your work.”

“No rest for us, then, I suppose,” you sigh. Malinka snorts, but she’s smiling, laughter tucked into the corner of her plush lips.

“You can always rest on my lap,” Wren calls out as you slip behind the bar. His grin is wide and playful, a small sun brought down to the earth. 

“I’d rather be run off my feet,” you call back.

“Your tongue is a blade, milady!”

“As much as you want the drag of my blade against the length of your sword,” you say, tipping him a wink, “I’m afraid you’ll only ever feel the sting of my keen words.”

Annika’s laughter washes over you like a warm tide, a lapping wave of sound that fans out over the bar. 

“So cruel,” Wren whines, raking a hand through his loose curls, but he’s still grinning.

“Sometimes,” you say, and you flutter a small kiss against his high cheekbone before dancing farther back to the kitchen hearth. 

The wide maw of the bread oven is bright with flames, glowing cherry red. Annika has sweat gleaming at the hollow of her throat and the thick swell of her cleavage. Her quick hands are shaping small rolls of bread, cajoling them into some type of oval before she slips them onto a pan. You settle next to her, and she passes you a lump of dough. 

The two of you find a rhythm. Soon you are churning out the rolls, each crisp and golden at the top, crackling with heat. Sweat dampens the edge of your bodice. You pull the laces looser, let the neckline ride a bit lower, and roll your eyes when Annika ribs you for it. The movement of shaping the bread is mesmerizing, but Annika does not let you forget yourself. She has been teaching you a weaving folk song, something that rises and falls like the mountains of the valley she was born in, and she plunges right back into her lessons.

The range is out of your reach, and your voice has just splintered on a note too high for you when Jaskier says: “I’ve never heard that song before.”

You glance over your shoulder. He’s lounging against the bar with a grin, his blue eyes deepened by the cerulean of his doublet. 

“You should hear it from Annika,” you say lightly, pressing your thumb into the center of a roll. The dough gives beneath your thumb, and you tuck a piece of herbed butter into the divot. “You might know it if I weren’t butchering it.”

“Unlikely,” Annika says, her slim fingers tight on a knife as she scores a loaf, dragging the tip through the floured surface of the dough in a feathery swirl. “You are butchering it, though.”

“Fuck off.”

She laughs.

You wipe your hands off on a small rag, wiping the sweat from your brow with your sleeve. Annika hands you a basket of fresh rolls. You tuck it against your hip, feel the warmth of it even through the thick wool of your skirt. You can see Betony winding her way back to the bar, light on her feet. You come forward to meet her. 

Betony presses fully against Jaskier to take the basket from you, trapping him between the counter and the lush curve of her body. She giggles as the bard stutters. 

“Be nice,” you tell her, but she just laughs before darting off again. You watch as she moves like a hummingbird, a tiny iridescent thing flitting from table to table, from sweet words to sweeter words. When you turn back to Jaskier, he’s pulling his gaze away from the low dip of your neckline, the froth of lace damp against your skin like foam left on the ocean’s shore. You raise a brow, but he just grins.

“Ale?” you ask him, already grabbing a tankard.

“Gods, I thought you’d never ask.”

“It’s an inn's tavern, Jaskier. What else would I give you?”

“Wine? A hearty meal? More specifically to this inn’s tavern, your lovely company?”

You snort and plunk the tankard down in front of him. “Not a song you’ve never heard before?”

He squints at you. “Is that an offer?”

“No.”

The noise that leaves him reminds you of a cat that’s fallen into water. 

Annika snickers as she sweeps up behind you, nudging you slightly so that she can set a still-steaming loaf down on one of the heavily scored wood boards. “Thinner slices for this one, I think,” she tells you. 

She glances at Jaskier. Annika has deep, deep brown eyes, almost as dark as the night sky, hypnotically endless. She traces those nightshade eyes over him and raises a slender brow. “Play me a song I’ve never heard before, bard,” she says, “and I might just teach you mine.” 

She glides off as Wren calls to her from down the bar, his silken voice raspy against the sound of her name. 

Jaskier turns his sea-blue gaze to you. “I don’t suppose you’re going to give me a hint?”

“You suppose correctly,” you say with a smile. The crust of the bread crunches beneath your knife; steam rises from the fresh cut, curls into the air and then fades away. “No hints.”

He pushes back from the bar and sets his hands on his hips. “Is there a single woman here who is not well-versed in the art of teasing?”

“It’s part of our hiring policy,” you say dryly. 

Jaskier huffs dramatically. “Fine,” he says. “I’ve no doubt that in my vast repertoire, I can find something.”

“Good luck,” you say. “Annika wandered the Continent to record oral traditions and songs before she settled here.”

“Oh. Oh, I see.”

“As I said,” you tell him. “Good luck.”

“With you blessing me with luck, how could I fail?” he asks.

You wave him off, but the laugh spills out of you like water, soft and flowing. 

Jaskier flashes you a grin, something spirited yet fleeting, like heat lightning darting through the clouds. For a moment, there’s something like a question in the quirk of his lips, but a patron - one of the newly arrived travelers, a stocky man with a well-worn sword and a sweet, sweet smile - calls to you. 

You murmur a pardon to Jaskier and slip away. Not long after, still chattering away with the traveler, some distant part of you registers the sound of his lute, the way the notes unfurl in the ribbon of his voice, soft and silken and slow. 

Betony beckons you back into serving, whirls you until your skirts flare out like a fan, rippling around you. Jaskier’s songs flow like a river, the current always changing, slipping from slow and steady into the rushing rapids of a jig, loudly joyous. 

You’ve always wondered why time passes so quickly when all you want is another breath of a moment. Just one more heartbeat of reality. But the night continues on, until Betony is ducking out the door into the deluge of rain. Delythe follows her, her rough hands gentle as she tucks a wisp of Betony’s chestnut hair under the shelter of her hood. Betony gives her a starlight smile and then the two of them disappear into the dark. You wonder what that smile looks like in the sunshine.

Annika nudges at you when she realizes you’re idling at the counter, your cleaning rag rubbing in the same circle.

“Think that’s clean enough,” she says, wrapping her hand around your wrist and giving a slow, soft squeeze. “I think it’s your turn for the washing up.”

It isn’t, you know, but it requires more focus than this. 

You hand her the rag, and then the door to the inn bursts open. 

The heavy oak door strikes against the wall like a crack of thunder to accompany the sudden roar of the rain. Rose tumbles in, a tempest in her own right. She’s flushed, all crushed rose petals dusted high on her cheeks, her fine boned features delicate in the candlelight. Her hair, though, darkened to wine red by the water’s heavy touch - her hair clings to her face and neck, the strands woven against her like a map of roots, the edges of it tangled into the hood of her cloak, the very picture of a bedraggled child being pulled home after falling in a river. 

You barely manage to bite down on the laugh as Rose strides towards you. She whirls over the bar like a windswept tide, her hair smacking against her like a wave breaking on the shore. Out of the corner of your eye, you see Annika’s grin, shining like a candle in the night, broad and bright and beautiful. 

“Don’t say a word,” Rose warns, sloughing off her cloak and letting it drop to the floor behind the bar with a wet smack. You nudge at it with your toe and grimace.

“Whatever could you mean?” Annika asks innocently. “Flowers flourish in the rain, don’t they? Perhaps I was just going to comment on how nourished you look.”

“Annika,” Rose growls.

You take a careful step back. 

“I’m just saying that you’re well-watered, Rose.”

Rose lunges, still dripping water. Annika shrieks, the sound half laughter, and tears off towards the storeroom. Rose bounds after her. She leaves a glistening trail behind her, each droplet like dew on morning flowers.

You sigh and lean down to gather up Rose’s cloak. It’s a pretty thing, if a bit aged. You run a thumb over the worn thread of the embroidery, following the familiar pattern of the rosehips you’d sewn. 

It only takes a moment to hang her cloak and settle a bucket beneath it. Only a moment, and yet - when you turn, Geralt is there.

“Oh,” you breathe. “I’m sorry, I didn’t hear you.”

He pulls back the hood of his cloak, lets his hair spill out from it. Under the rain’s touch, his white hair has darkened to the silver of the moon, the gleam of a sword. With his eyes sun gold, he is day and night in one person. There is a dangerous beauty to him. A mountain rich with ore beneath the rocky facade, you think. 

Geralt’s gaze makes your skin prick. His attention is a stiletto slipping beneath your skin, something that cuts to the bone of you. You do not think there is any armor that could turn the blade of his gaze. You fist a handful of your skirt, pull the material tight beneath your fingers. 

“Ale?” you ask.

He considers you, and then nods. 

You fill a tankard quickly and set it carefully in front of him. 

“Thank you,” he rumbles. You watch as he wraps a large hand around the tankard, drawn to the way his blunt fingers flex against the wood. He drinks; the play of the muscles of his thick throat catches the firelight.

You should go, you know. You have never known eyes like his. Under the golden embers of his gaze, you are kindling, and he is already beginning to singe the wooden frame of you. 

Instead -

“There’s salt pork, if you’d like,” you say quietly. “And brown bread.”

“Yes,” Geralt says.

You start to put the plate together, ducking down into the small larder to pull out the pork. There’s a still warm loaf of brown bread tucked nearby, perfuming the air molasses-sweet. You start to cut it into thick slices. Geralt shifts, the bar creaking under his weight as his clothing rasps, and before you can catch yourself, you ask: “Do you have to remember to make noise?”

He goes still. It’s that unnatural stillness, the breath before the storm, and you cannot imagine wanting that, to muffle all those small sounds of life, the unconscious ones, the rise and fall of breath and the sound of bare feet crossing the floor so someone could slip into your bed. All of those things you’d clawed your way back to. When you make yourself raise your head, Geralt is looking at you, his brow furrowed. Heat flares to life in your cheeks. 

You drop your eyes and focus on the way the bread gives under your knife, watch the movement of your hands as if they are not yours. 

“Sometimes,” Geralt says, his voice like low, distant thunder.

You glance up.

He meets your eyes steadily, the gold of him molten at the edges now, a touch of softness in the blade of him. “It takes some effort, making noise,” he tells you. His hand tightens around the tankard and you think that perhaps he has surprised himself.

“I didn’t mean to pry,” you say softly. 

He grunts.

You place the plate in front of him as Annika rounds the corner. There’s a large damp spot at the base of her neck, the material of her bodice clinging to her skin. “Eat,” you tell Geralt. “It’s best warm.”

Rose appears, still bedraggled but with a look of triumph painted across her features. She glances between you and the Witcher. She slips past Annika, winds a strong arm around your waist like a vine on a trellis. “Come help me bake,” she says. “The oven will warm me.”

“Alright,” you say, glancing at Annika.

Annika smiles at you. Her dark eyes are warm, and she gestures you away. She turns to Geralt, glances him over, and says: “Tell your friend he’ll need more songs if he wants mine.”

Rose leads you forward in an odd little dance, Annika’s voice fading slightly. Rose whirls about before the bread oven, lifting her skirts to let the warmth fan over her legs. 

You settle in before the hearth and start to weave the bread dough into fine little wreaths. Rose drops down next to you. “It’ll be fine,” she says softly, running a hand over yours. Sometimes there is reverence in her touch. She pulls back and starts to plait with you, her clever hands quick.

“I hope so,” you murmur. 

You can feel Geralt’s heavy gaze.

It is some time before the tavern truly empties. Rose keeps you busy with bread-making, weaving tales as well as she does dough. Jaskier halts his performance and comes to the bar. You pay him no attention, let Rose keep your focus, even as Jaskier and Annika playfully snipe at each other about songs. 

Soon, he too has retired. You do not have to look to know that Geralt has gone with the bard. You can feel his absence like the new moon, something shrouded but present. 

The night falls into something unearthly, those odd hours when even the earth seems asleep. You wonder if the soil aches for the dawn’s tender fingers. Rose putters about, drags you into tasks with her, wraps you up into her embrace when you go into the distance, when you fall into the emptiness of the night’s velvet spread. 

But she cannot be with you every moment.

The moon is still hidden behind heavy rain clouds as dawn approaches. You think you can taste paint on your tongue, thick with oil. The moon only reflects the sun, you know, generates no light of its own, but it is the closest you can get, and you mourn even one night without it. 

It is easy to be lost in the sea of the night.

And lost you are, caught in the waves of the moonless sky, when Geralt appears once more.

You startle at his sudden presence, a ghost come to life, and your knife goes through the hunk of cheese and into your skin. For a moment, it doesn’t register, and then you are gasping for air, scrabbling for a rag to cover the blood. 

Geralt’s big hands close around yours. He holds the rag tight against you, the calluses on his palm scraping against your skin. 

“You’re fine,” he tells you calmly. “The pressure will stop the bleeding soon.”  
“Thank you,” you say, but you cannot help the way your eyes dart to the rag, to the small patch of darkness spreading out on the cloth. Your fingers are stiff beneath his hands, like carved wood. 

“Come to the back,” Rose says, coming up behind you and laying a gentle hand on the curve of your back. “I’ll take care of it.”

Geralt keeps his hands cupped around yours for a moment more, and then he releases you, as if your skin is scalding. Rose chivvies you towards the storeroom, her lips tight, and you know she has seen the ever-darkening patch against the cloth. You glance back at Geralt, a moth to his flame. 

He is watching you carefully, his brow furrowed, and one large hand wrapped around the silver medallion that rests against his brawny chest.

You look away.

Rose settles you on the small cushions set aside in the storeroom for when any of you need a moment off your feet. 

“Do you think...” she says quietly.

“I don’t know.” You have to force the words through your numb lips. “I don’t think so.”

She presses her cheek against your shoulder. She is warm and familiar.

Rose keeps her hand tight around yours, and you carry that with you until the first breath of dawn.

* * *

Malinka enters the small room just as you are unwinding the last of the chain. It’s all glinting gold, the gleam of the sun on the swaying autumn fields of wheat. You unravel the gossamer links from your neck, let it stretch towards the ground like a spider’s string, and let it slip through your fingers to pile on the floor. The winding length of it reminds you of a snake, coiled and ready to strike.

You slip on your chemise, flexing your stiff fingers, trying to get them limber again. 

Malinka leans down to pick up the chain. Her onyx curls tumble down like thick smoke, shining in the low light of the guttering candle. She sets the chain down on the washbin and traces a finger over the scalloped earrings you’ve already removed.

“You can wear them, you know,” you say. You know they are the finest things she has ever seen, ever touched. 

“I wouldn’t do that to you,” Malinka says. 

You start to lace up your bodice. “I don’t mind them on you.”

“Are you sure?” she asks. Her brown eyes are unsure, darkened by the flickering light. She has her great-grandfather’s eyes.

“Yes.”

“Thank you,” she says. She hesitates for a moment before she picks them up. They’re heavy, you know, thick, weighty gold. Malinka clicks them into place. They are beautiful on her, delicate against her strong, noble features.

“Not that I mind a visit,” you say, tying your laces into place, “but what brings you here?”

“I knew you’d forget,” she says. She pulls a small roll of cotton strips from her pocket. They’re pristine, like clouds on a perfect summer day, perhaps. 

“Oh.”

“Come here,” Malinka says, and you obey.

She unwinds one of the strips, unspools it like tapestry thread. Her hands are soft as she pulls your hand towards her.

You watch as she winds the bandage around your finger, the unblemished skin disappearing behind the shroud of the cotton. She pulls it tight and tucks the ends into place. 

Malinka glances at you with her deep, sweet eyes, and you have never seen such a sea of sorrow. It is a tide in her, and the current of it pulls at you. 

You flex your hand to test the give of the cotton. It holds.

You rise to your feet and begin your night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> catch me trying to remember that pacing is a thing and i can't just shove every idea into a single chapter.


End file.
